You’ve probably heard that using live video in your business could help you engage with your customer. They can get to know you better through your conversation or showing what you do in your business.

But many business owners are scared by live video, so simply don’t do it. I’ve heard the following reasons excuses for not doing live video. How do these sound to you?

nobody wants to know what I do

I’m not very photogenic

I don’t have a video camera / the right lighting / the right microphone

Really? Your customers don’t want to know what you do? Why on earth not? If they want to buy from you, why wouldn’t they want to know more?

And the others? Well, I guess you have a mobile phone or computer as you’re reading this? Who says you’re not photogenic?

You can see from this photo that she’s an expert, and I’m still in learning phase for live video! She was so kind when she said “you are the light Tracey-Jane” 😉

Live video tips to take the fear away

Use the equipment you’ve already got when you’re starting out. Your smartphone has lots of tools, and if it has a camera, you can record and share live video from it

Choose the platform which you’re most comfortable with. If you use LinkedIn, use their video function; if Facebook is your preferred place to be, use their livestream; if you’re constantly on Instagram use Instagram stories to share your video

Improve your lighting by getting natural light lightbulbs. Alice herself uses 2 unshaded lamps on either side of her camera, at about eye level. This is important for preventing shading on your face. For those of us with glasses this helps reduce the glare off your glasses

Practice before going live. You can create a secret group on Facebook and practice, practice, practice there. Practice on any topic you like. If you have a safe place to share, like the Business Cheerleading Club support group, practice in the group and get feedback from members.

Test your audio before you start. My first ever live facebook interview will go down in history as a classic case of this! I thought the audience could hear me, even though my guest couldn’t. Ooops! It’s actually a brilliant #tipsforbusiness video as Carrie Eddins gives some excellent PR tips for getting you started which is why you can still watch it! 😉

Stay a bit more the right on your screen and look at the camera, not the image on the screen. It’s hard and this takes practice, but it’s worth trying out and seeing what works for you

Generally use your phone in landscape mode as most platforms prefer this format. It also makes it a better “look” when you download the video and use in other content.

Want to learn more about using Live Video?

Join our online workshop Friday 10th August 11am BST where Alice from Fabulous with Alice will give some more practical live video tips in an interactive workshop. She’ll be focusing on ways you can use live video without being on camera. Sound like something which would help you get going with video in your business?

It’s free to Business Cheerleading Club members (level silver or above), or you can join us for £29 for the one off workshop. This includes the recording. LINK TO FOLLOW MESSAGE ME IF YOU WANT THIS.

What tips would you add for getting started with live video in a business?

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Data protection and GDPR is a business process that you should be integral to your business. There are no exemptions for small and micro businesses. However, GDPR shouldn’t be scaring you, as it’s a business process for you to use and store your customers information, safely and securely.

NOTE: Replace DATA with the word INFORMATION and the process will make more sense for your business

I recently interviewed Annabel Kaye from KoffeeKlatch who as a employment law expert has been helping small businesses work through contracts and legal compliance since 1989. Since last summer, Annabel and her team have been sharing a common sense GDPR approach with small and micro businesses.

We like common sense & believe we share a common sense approach to business & our business support to you.

We’ve seen, and heard, many scaremongers about GDPR which has turned businesses off, rather than supporting them to go through the review process of how you manage and store information in your business. So, here’s our common sense GDPR suggestions for you to get to grips with what you need to do in YOUR business.

Common sense GDPR tips for your business

Schedule a couple of hours a week to work on your own common sense GDPR processes for your business

List all your business software, then check their approach to storing information e.g. If you use an online or cloud based system, you need to know where & how they store their information. Most support services are being very clear about GDPR so you shouldn’t have any difficulty finding what they’re doing in response to GDPR, like Mailchimp

Think about your business. What information do you NEED to enable you to run your business efficiently? For example, if you have an online shop, it’s likely you need customer name and an email address, and possibly a phone number for any order queries.

Thinking about your business, how long do you need to retain customer information? You will need to retain accounting records (and evidence of VAT sales) for the required time, so don’t be ditching customer records each year!

If a customer signs up to a newsletter about your local service, that means, “a newsletter about your local service”.

Those people on your current lists, are you happy that you can explain how they got on your list even if you’ve not got the hard copy of the original sign up form?

Think about your own personal information. How do you want your own information to be stored and used by other businesses, doctors, charities, employers? Do you want it to be respected? Now think about how you can respect the information of your customers within your business, and keep it safe, without it costing you the earth in time or money (and it shouldn’t be doing either).

I’m creating diagrams of each part of my business so I can see what information I get from potential customers, existing clients, and past customers. I’m writing down all the different systems I use. I like to see things in front of me, but that may not work for you.

During the interview with Annabel, we talk through marketing CONSENT, with an example from one of our members, which is the biggest question we’re getting in the Business Cheerleading Club, where we talk through & support individual business situations.

What common sense GDPR tips would you add?

Confused, or are you all sorted with your information processes? Taking a common sense GDPR view is the best way to move forward, wherever you’re starting from at this point in time.

Starting your own business is an exciting step in your life. It can also be a challenge to ensure you get everything done that you need for ensuring it’s right for you, and is set up for sustainable growth, without you getting overwhelmed.

To help you get started, we’ve created a start up checklist for the nitty gritty of starting your own business. However, don’t get bogged down in the boring bits, when there’s lots of things to get stuck into when running your own business!

When we help start up businesses, these are the areas we get them to think about to make things a smooth transition into your new business. What would you add?

Tips for starting your own business

Know your reason for starting your own business & keep that in mind. If you’ve created a new product, fantastic. Well done you 🙂 If you’re wanting more flexibility around your family, keep that in mind. Don’t get bogged down in working all hours in your business, when your whole idea was to spend more time with the family! (Believe me, it happens, which is why I mention this first!).

How many hours are you working on your business each week. Be clear. If you’re working elsewhere whilst growing your business, you’ll need to be really strict with yourself. If you have other commitments, it’s good to think about what hours you’re working so you don’t get distracted.

What name are you using for your business. If you’re a sole trader you can use your own name without risking contention with anyone else in business. You own your name. If you want to use a brand name or business name, check out existing trademarks to ensure you don’t get into trouble before you start.

What’s your goal for the next 6 months. I’m sure you’re wanting to “make a million” next week with your business! Well, that’s unlikely to happen! So thinking about what you want to achieve in stages is helpful, even if you don’t achieve them, it’s likely that you’ll achieve something better. Often you’ll find that as you start your own business you’ll change things slightly to make them work better for you, so the goal posts will change over time as you get feedback. Having those initial 6 month, and 12 month goals will help you focus on a target that then moves with review.

Who’s supporting you. Whilst you’re busy starting your own business, how are you being supported? You need to ensure your partner, family and friends are right behind you. Do you have a structure to your week that means you’ve got regular time off to do the fun things you love? Don’t stop doing them, as you can’t work in the business all the time. You need your breaks, and for your brain to switch off from the business regularly. Being strict with your time off is just as important as being strict with your time in the business.

When you’re running your own business, you are responsible for everything. That can be wonderful, but also a challenge. There’ll be some aspects you love, and others you put to one side and leave. Start out thinking about them all and working out how they’ll all get done, even if it’s not you doing some parts.

Free Checklist for running your own business

We’re here to help support you as you grow your own business. For starters, download the free Start Up Checklist, then ask for the help you need:

What other tips would you add for others starting their own business? Let them know in the comments below.

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You may think blogging is ‘old hat’. Or heard that blogging for business is “a waste of time”. Yet, there’s a lot of businesses who are growing their online visibility through blogging. What do you do? Why bother with blogging?

In our recent #inconversationwith business blogging expert Sarah Arrow, she walked us through how she’d taken her husband’s business website from no traffic, to 700 visitors a week, which led to a massive increase in sales. That’s how her blogging for business journey started. She, and Kevin, now help many business owners to write content on their websites to grow their business reputation and increase sales.

Why bother blogging for business?

As Sarah said so eloquently, “If you want to leave those customers for me to have, that’s fine. I’ll take them!” She went on to say, “when I asked my customers how they’d found us, they said, “I typed it in google” ” Simple as that!

Sarah told me how she wrote blogs, (or posts, or articles), whichever term you prefer that answered customer queries that she was getting on the phone. She wrote posts that helped her understand Kevin’s transport business. She wasn’t a writer, and didn’t want to write. However, she found that, when she wrote a post, (on BT Tradespace which is where she started blogging for business), that the phone would ring with a booking, or enquiry. Instead of writing 3 times a week, she decided to write daily, to keep the phone ringing every day.

The more you write, the more people are able to get to know you. They understand how your business works. They understand, know and like you as a business owner, and know they want to do business with you.

We discussed that many business owners are frightened of blogging, for all sorts of reasons. The main one I see and hear, is those businesses who aren’t wanting to be visible, or aren’t certain about what their business does, so aren’t able to talk about it. Others are scared that they’ll say “something wrong”.

What do your customers need to know?

If you’re ready to get started, and I highly recommend Sarah’s 30 day blogging challenge as a starting point, then start with talking to your customers about what they need to know:

About you

About your product or service

Why did you set the business up?

What can your product or service help them with? In marketing speak, what “pain” does your product or service “relieve”

What do you offer that they can’t get from another business which sells the same product?

And that’s just a starting point! Can you see? Whether you like the term blogging, or content marketing, all you’re doing as a business, is sharing your skills and knowledge with your customers and potential customers.

As Sarah said, when you’ve got water gushing everywhere, you simply need the first plumber that comes up in your google search who can come right now. If Joe Bloggs Plumbers who lives down the road doesn’t have a website, or is consciously promoting himself online, he’ll not be found when you search for ‘plumber’ in your area.

How to get started with blogging for business

I recommend Sarah’s 30 day blogging challenge. It’s focused on blogging for business & not only takes you through the writing aspect, giving you ideas of what to write about, but also how to set your website up to get maximum traffic.

The Business Cheerleading Club supports all aspects of business, and we’ve been exploring with some members the how to of blogging, and have even helped add a blog to a website to get them started. Each month we explore a business topic, but as a member you can ask questions, get support, and share your blog links to get extra traffic from club members.

In fact, the last two Action Spotlight Coaching sessions have focused on content creation and blogging for members. We talked through the types of content they could create, and how they could schedule their time to blog regularly, to “improve your writing muscle”, as Sarah said.

I like writing, and sharing my knowledge by blogging for my business. I know it’s increasing traffic to my website, as my stats tell me that too. I’m getting more potential customers find me and talk to me, and it’s growing my business.

Do you blog for your business? Or do you think you’d like to get started now you know a bit more? We’re here to help 🙂

We all encounter a little stress in our lives, so it’s important to know some quick tips to reduce and remove our stress. These stress busting techniques were shared with us by Esther Nagle, from Balance and Breathe, in our recent online conversation.

Stress busting techniques

1. SLEEP

Esther’s top stress busting tip is getting your sleep right. Many business owners struggle to sleep well as your brain is buzzing with ideas, or you “just want to get this done”. Instead of getting good sleep, and letting our bodies and brains rest, we often believe that we’ll work through it.

Without sleep, we’ll start to feel more stressed, and out of control. Sleep helps us get a more balanced view of our work, and life.

2. MAKE TIME FOR YOURSELF IN THE MORNING

After your great sleep, Esther suggested that you need to make time for yourself in the morning to set up your stress free day. Whatever you do with that dedicated “morning routine”, (and you may need to play a little bit to get it right for you), be it exercise, meditation, planning, or a mixture of different activities, will be important to the day ahead.

3. TAKE REGULAR BREAKS

This is one area we know that business owners struggle to do. And it’s often the ‘regular’ bit of it that’s missing!

Whether you set an alarm to keep your day broken up, or schedule your day with breaks into it, it’s important that you step away from your work, take a break, before returning to it.

Having a drink, (why are brew areas so important in offices? Not just for the social interaction, but the act of moving from your desk to get a drink), going for a short walk, stretching, dancing, singing. Changing your physical and mental state for that whole body and brain change is important.

4. PRACTICE GRATITUDE

This is an interesting one, but one you’ll probably have heard of. It’s interesting that Esther thinks this is important as a stress busting technique.

Knowing that you have a lot to be grateful for can really help you to focus on what’s fantastic about your work and business, and know that the current frustations (stresses), are only there to make your business better in the future.

Some people write down their #threethings each day in a journal or diary, or even share them on social media (making you accountable for what’s good in your life). Others will have times during the day when they’ll think about what they’re grateful for.

5. GET HELP

I know from personal experience that business owners are often bad at asking for help! We think we have to know it all and do it all. Hmmm. That’s not going help our stress levels is it?

So, what can you ask someone else to do? Is it the family to do more around the house if you need to work in the business more? Can a friend help you out at an event, instead of you trying to do it all yourself & not being pleased that you couldn’t speak to everyone? Would an assistant be helpful to do the things you don’t enjoy/aren’t finding time to do?

6. BREATHE

It’s interesting that Esther chose this one to end our conversation, as when she started talking about it, it felt to me that it was the most important stress busting technique that’s available! [Note – Esther has told me since that she could have talked for days about breathing, so she left it until last to ensure she told us the other top tips first!]

Breathing well, helps keep us grounded. Simply breathing in and out, takes the focus away from our busy mind, and focuses on the breath. There’s different breathing techniques you can learn. For starters, simply breathe in and out deeply three times.

I use this when I start to feel a little anxious and is the perfect way to get yourself back in control when you feel yourself getting a bit ‘off balance’.

More stress busting technique support

I learnt loads from Esther, from Balance and Breathe, in our short time together. Her stress busting techniques are all simple to put into practice and are all free! We just need to do them.

If you’d like some support, as a business owner, to reduce your stress, whilst continuing to work in your business, the Business Cheerleading Club has other business owners who know what you’re feeling, and going through, and will support you to put your stress busting techniques in place. It’s a place to ask for help.

What else would you add to these stress busting techniques for business owners?

Any business, however large or small, whatever industry you’re in, needs to know how to determine which social media network fits your business. Whether you like it or not, social media networks are here to stay, and your business needs to use them to communicate with your customers, where they are happiest.

We have some clients who tell us that, “they don’t like social networks”. That’s fine. We understand that social networking isn’t for everyone. Not all businesses have customers who use social networks. However, people who may refer your business to someone aged 80+, or buy for them, are likely to use some form of social media.

Yes, the use may well be purely social. However, our children are very social savvy, and will often tell us about something they’ve seen on a social network that interests them, or they think will interest us.

So being aware of social networks and which ones to use for your business are important. We all have choices, and if you’ve done your research and decide to focus on one channel only, that’s great. You understand what your business needs, and the resources you have available to you, and where you’re best focusing those resources.

How to determine which social media network fits your business

1. Know your audience – being really clear about who they are, what they do, and where they ‘hang out’ is your first step. Without that, (or knowing your customer avatar), you haven’t got a place to start

2. Who makes the buying decision for your product/service? If you’re a business to customer business, is it the end user who makes the purchasing decision, or someone else? (A parent, child, carer?). If you work business to business, who decides? Is it the marketing manager, the training manager, the sole person who works in and runs the business?

3. Are you promoting a lifestyle option or brand? Are you helping businesses improve their service or product? Are you creating unique products? Are you providing a service? How can you “show off” your product and/or service best to your potential customers? Is it visual? Is it through customer testimonials for your work?

We suggest you consider the demographics and usage of each social channel, as well as it’s reach. Facebook is by far the biggest social media platform, with 461 million active users a month. However, Instagram has by far the biggest engagement per 1000 followers, over seven times higher than the next channel, Facebook! Wow! So, if you’re looking for engagement, head to Instagram! [Source: New Global Social Media Research]

Having the confidence in all these areas, will make your decision about which social media channel/s you’re going to use for your business easier. However, we also recommend regularly reviewing if your social media strategy is working!

If you’d like some help with how to determine which social media network fits your business, book a call with Tracey-Jane, or join the Business Cheerleading Club & discuss it with other business owners, and Tracey-Jane in the group.

What social media channels do you use that work for you & your business?

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I love talking and meeting people and having a conversation. It helps the world go round, don’t you think?

If you don’t have a conversation with your client, how will you know what they want, and if you’re the right business to serve them?

How do find the right supplier, or negotiate the right deal for your business? You have to have a conversation.

I was looking at ways to help business owners learn tips and tricks to improve you improve your time management, or learn how to do something. I know you don’t have much time to go searching for what’s right for you. There’s so many courses and tutorials and youtube videos available, but what’s going to work for you?

Conversation with experts

Last week I decided to have conversations with some experts I know in different areas of business, and personal development. My goal is to spend no longer than 30 minutes with the expert – they’re busy and so are you – getting a couple of #tipsforbusiness owners from them from our conversation.

I love learning, and spend a lot of time reading, and watching tutorials and webinars. But I’m sometimes left with more questions than I started with! I want to ask “what does that mean for me?”, “how do I do that in my situation?”. So, this way, I can do the asking!

We’re carrying out these conversations on our Facebook page as a live interview. So they’re free for anyone to watch, and ask questions during the conversation (or in advance if you can’t come live). We’ve created quite a list in a short space of time, and are now getting experts booked in for conversations in April. It’s wonderful how so many people are wanting to share their tips with others so we can all learn and do better in our lives and business.

Every conversation is recorded and will be available afterwards. For our Cheerleading Club members, they’ll have them in the club resource centre. We’ll also be putting them on our YouTube Channel, and of course on the Facebook page, so hopefully they’ll be easy for you to find what you need.

What would you like to learn from a conversation

So whilst I’ve started learning and having amazing conversations with fantastic people, we’d like to hear what you would like to learn from a conversation with….Who? Who would you like to have a conversation with?

If we can all have more conversations with each other, we’re bound to understand each other better, learn more, and help each other more aren’t we, and grow all areas of our business too?

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Business assets are often thought to be cash in the bank, property and stock. Your website assets are just as important, even if they’re not listed on your balance sheet.

I know some businesses will have a value put on their website as an asset in the business. Often when a business is sold, the website assets are clearly part of the pricing, and due diligence within the sale.

However, when we work with clients website assets are often not valued in the same way as stock is.

What do you mean, website assets?

Well, you have your business website don’t you. It may be simply a place for people to find out basic information from you, or it may be your whole business, with stock or services being bought & used from the website.

If you have a full e-commerce site, or site where people come for training courses, then you may well consider your website to be one of your biggest assets in your business. However, this isn’t always the case.

I’ve also helped people create their own website, and once it’s created they just leave it there and expect it to “do it’s job”. Huh? Getting a website live is only the first part of the journey. Now you’ve invested in a website, you need to make it work for you. [We’ve created a 10 module course, with 6 months support, for business owners, as we see this a lot. It’s for anyone with a website that wants to make the most of this asset you have. It’s still being re-worked, hence the price].

Outside of your website though, are all the things linking to your website, which are also considered part of your website assets. Such as, links to your website; social media channels; google my business profile; profiles on industry directories. Everything digital, linked to your website is part of your website assets and helps to maintain your online profile, and your business reputation.

So when that person advises you to start doing some blogging, or linking to your website from your instagram account, they are telling you to put some support in place for your website assets. Having a website sat in the inter-web by itself isn’t enough. It may look beautiful and be perfectly formed, and run so smoothly that it’s a dream for your team to manage.

You may think I’m being cruel here – it’s just some files and technical coding (my web developer friends aren’t going to be happy with me are they?). Yes, they’re your files and coding and they are unique and special to you and your business. And that’s exactly why I’m being honest – look after them. Love them. Love your website and it will love you back.

Make the most of your website assets

There are some simple things you can do, fairly easily and regularly, if you’re looking after your website yourself. Or you these are the things you need to get your web or tech team, or online marketing support team to do for you. These are basics. It’s not a full list, but it’s a start for you to get making the most of those website assets you’ve already got:

Create new articles regularly. Now our friends at SarkeMedia will say creating new content every day will really make a difference. It will, but we’re just starting here. So let’s say you add something new to your website twice a week. We highly recommend the 30 day blogging challenge, run by Sarah and Kevin Arrow. You’ll learn far more than just about blogging, and their support is excellent. You’ll also see that if you use their strategies, you’ll see results to your website traffic, and online engagement in general

Create links to your website from social media Now there’s all sorts of suggestions about how best to do this, but if you’re starting from nothing, then doing something is better than nothing. Depending on your business, and your target audience, you may use a variety of social media channels. Use what’s right for you, not what your friend tells you to do.

Ensure your business details are on the relevant industry directories, or local pages and are kept up to date. There’s nothing that annoys us all than details being out of date is there?

If you need help working through what you’ve currently got, and create a plan for making the most of your website assets now you understand a bit more, why not book a call with Tracey-Jane? Or join the Business Cheerleading Club, and talk things through there with club members, or use the Action Spotlight coaching session to work things through.

Do you think about website assets in your business? Do you look after them as lovingly as you your property and stock?

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Learning how to prioritise work has to be one of the best skills for business owners to learn. Quickly.

We often start a business because we have a talent or passion, and love doing that particular skill or interest, so focus our time on that. As we know, there are many areas of business we need to consider when we’re running our own show, so prioritising is a skill we have to put into action. Our boss isn’t going to tell us what they want us to do, it’s all down to us!

Juggling is only an option if you don’t let anything fall

Many business owners are master jugglers. You’re the person who answers the phone, pays the bills, makes the product, goes to the post office, makes the tea, and orders the supplies. You’re probably the cleaner and tea maker too!

When you’re working in your business, do you do things at set times each day or week? Or is there one long “to do” list, and you’ll start with the one you want to do, and work your way through the list somehow?

Depending on your business, if you’re the only person dealing with customers, then you have to put them first. It’s not that “the customer is always right”, it’s simply because your customers are paying your bills, and giving you an income, (hopefully).

Without customers, you have no business.

Assuming you put customers first every day in your business, and you deal with queries, you create the product or service they want. What time have you got left for everything else on your list?

How to prioritise work

Ok, so you’ve served your customers and made sure they’re happy and have everything they need. Now you’re left with x amount of time. What now?

Check your list. What’s jumping out at you? Is it jumping out because it’s been there for 18 months and is finally getting a bit angry you haven’t done it yet? Or is it jumping out because it’s the next product you’re wanting to create for your customers? Or it’s an improvement to the call answering system that you’ve been meaning to put into place. A new system will save you time, and your customers will get better service.

Can you see? Whatever is going to affect your customers experience, and/or future customer relations should be high on your priority list.

The other things you need to think about, which do fit in with that theme, is getting money in, and paying bills on time. If your customers don’t pay you, you can’t pay your suppliers, and they’ll stop delivering, so you’ll have to stop making product. See? That’s how it works. So spending time on your finances is important.

“What about marketing and social media?” I hear you cry. Yes, they’re important as they are maintaining customer relationships, and seeking out new customers. However, think about the time v income scenario.

It always comes back to money! Without money, you have no business. So it’s important learning how to prioritise work.

Know your numbers

If you know your business numbers you’ll find it easier to prioritise your work and to do list. If you know how much time it takes to get a lead to buy something from you, you’ll know that you need to start x weeks in advance of when you need the income to generate new leads.

If you know how much time it takes to create product, or deliver your service, and the income you’re getting from that, you’ll know your hourly rate. If you spend more time than necessary on social media, you’re reducing the time you’ve got to spend with paying customers.

There’s all sorts of different ways to look at this. And it will very much depend on your business and your circumstances. If you’re in start up phase you’ll be spending more time marketing and communicating than you’ll need to as your business grows. (You may also get someone else to do some of this work to give you more hours in the day).

If you have staff, or assistants you’ll be able to delegate tasks to them that other people can do, leaving you, the expert in your field to do the things that only you can do.

Sometimes it’s simple to work out how to prioritise work, and other times all we can see is a long list with no end. Asking yourself some basic questions, mainly, “does it serve the customer” & / or “is it making money” will help you get really clear what your priorities are today.

We’ve created a 5 day planner which will help you get really clear on your priorities. It’s free to download, but we just need your email address to send it to you. If you fill in the box below, then confirm we can send it to you, it’ll be in your inbox & ready for you to use in no time.

Hope it helps? Can you tell us how to prioritise work in a different way? Care to share? Let us know below in the comments.

http://managethosethings.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Manage-Those-Things-2-300x100.png00Managehttp://managethosethings.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Manage-Those-Things-2-300x100.pngManage2018-02-07 22:07:062018-02-07 22:07:06How to prioritise work

When we first start out in business, we often dive straight in with the thing we’re most comfortable with, and also the thing we’re most passionate about. And we love it!

Then we realise that there’s more areas of business that we need to consider to ensure that everything is done, so that customers are served on time, suppliers are paid, and that we’re paid too! It maybe isn’t so simple running a business after all!

If we’re a one person business, then we’re responsible for ensuring all areas of business are completed to a high standard and nothing is missed. Even if we get others to help us, whether it’s family and friends, or we pay a specialist, we still need to manage all aspects of business for it to function efficiently.

What areas of business do you focus on?

Do you have particular areas of business you focus on? Is that because you enjoy them more? Do you shy away from the finances as you don’t like numbers? Or do you simply love putting new photographs on your website, or communicating with customers on social media?

There will be certain areas of business we prefer. However, as business owners we need to ensure that all are covered and carried out, so our business can grow.

Areas of business to manage:

Finances

money in

money out

annual accounts & tax returns

Resources

staff, contractors

systems

asset management

property management

Products &/or services

buying or making

storing

Sales

Customer service

Marketing

Offline

Online

Public relations

Administration

systems

procedures

reporting

Technology

Strategy & structure

Planning & review

You may well have some other areas of business, or terms you use. Do they come into these general headings? Or do we need to add some more?

OK, so now we’ve identified areas of business you need to manage, are you managing them efficiently?

Again, efficiency for one business will look very different to another. So, firstly, do you have time scheduled in your diary for each of these areas of business? That’s the first thing to consider.

You may only do your business finances once a month, whilst you work on marketing every day. That’s fine. As long as you’re working on all areas of business, then you’ll be making progress in your business.

So, which areas of business do you need to pay a little more attention to?

The Business Cheerleading Club focuses support on your WHOLE business, and the business training, experts and business coaching will support the area YOU need help with. Join now, and don’t worry about what you haven’t been doing. Let’s focus on what you have been doing, and put a plan in place for those other little bits.

Once you’re aware of all the areas of business, you can plan to work on them, in the right way for you.

http://managethosethings.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Manage-Those-Things-2-300x100.png00adminhttp://managethosethings.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Manage-Those-Things-2-300x100.pngadmin2018-02-05 19:08:132018-02-05 21:52:36Are you managing all areas of business efficiently?